


The Fit

by phnelt



Category: Warchild Series - Karin Lowachee
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 08:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27468316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phnelt/pseuds/phnelt
Summary: Kind of messed up that Jos looked more human among fucking aliens than he ever had with his own people. Or. Evan guessed these were his people, that Jos was alien on the inside in a way Evan hadn’t understood till now.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Fit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [derogatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/derogatory/gifts).



> I tried to make this romantic, I really did they're just so frustrating.
> 
> Happy Yuletide Derogatory! I hope you like this.

Jos showed Evan to his new room on Aian-na, still sort of half-smiling when he did it. It was fucking weird. Evan had seen Jos smile four, maybe six times before the Warboy had dropped into their lives and now he did it on the regular, lips twitching up or left eye crinkling just a little. Sure that expression on another human would still look ice-cold, constipated even, but on Jos it was like a whole other more cheerful person was trying to crawl out of his skin. Didn’t matter that Jos pointed his grins at Evan more than anyone else (it _didn’t_ ) it was still strange. 

Kind of messed up that Jos looked more human among fucking aliens than he ever had with his own people. Or. Evan guessed these were his people, that Jos was alien on the inside in a way Evan hadn’t understood till now. 

It was funny, when he'd met Jos again and latched onto him for safety, how wrong he'd been. He’d thought he had Jos all figured out, a sim with an extremely easy solution. One look at Jos’ sad, wide eyes, and his casual violence and Evan had pegged him. He'd thought Jos was this prickly anti-social, desperately lonely kid and that Evan could work that. Jos had wanted someone to take care of so bad Evan could smell it on him. Hadn't Jos taken one look at Evan and been so starved for it he'd disobeyed his Captain to get him? Evan had thought that meant something. Meant he had a lever. 

And it had meant something, it meant that Jos didn’t give a fuck about Captain Azarcon’s orders. Because he was betraying him. It meant that Jos was good at lying. 

Everything about Jos was a lie. He was prickly, unless it was for the Warboy and he opened up like a sweet can of peaches. He wasn’t anti-social, he had a clique on the ship that would kill and die for him and some sort of complex martial arts brotherhood that Evan couldn’t even begin to understand. 

He wasn't lonely either. 

Jos the orphan had a whole family. 

Evan had sat down with the Warboy's mom for tea -- and wasn't that wild, the Warboy had a mother who'd gone half-alien herself. He'd sat down and choked at bitter red sludge and made nice the best way he knew how, which was limited without being able to show just how sorry - slash - willing - slash - no trouble he could be. He'd already outgrown most of his charms, and the rest were a bit rusty. That was Jos' fault too, for scaring off anyone who would have kept his skills up. The only type of person on the Macedon who would still approach him for favours was one who wouldn't rough him up anywhere. Or at least not anywhere Jos could see. 

So Evan was unprepared and defenseless when she asked him all sorts of questions that boiled down to "What do you want with our Jos?" "Why are you making time with him?" It was the same interrogation the Captain had given him, but no one could reasonably think he was going to flip on the _Warboy_ to get back in with _pirates,_ right? Evan was stupid but he wasn't that stupid. 

He kicked the leg of the low table in the middle of the room. It hurt his toe. Typical. He had to laugh at himself, a single chuckle that almost echoed. 

The space was too big. It had a bed that could fit three, four if the occupants liked each other a whole lot, and this table. Nothing else. Evan thought maybe he wasn't being trusted with real furniture yet. But then there was nice art on the wall, done up with actual paint, nothing holographic. There was art _all over._ For a prison room, it was sure fancy. Evan went over to the cabinet. It had some lumps of soft white ribbon, which had to be those weird alien clothes, and piles and piles of art supplies. Maybe this was a prison work colony and he needed to stamp out -- Evan squinted at the walls -- craggly squiggly line portraits with glowing orbs on them. Maybe that was his job for the rest of his life, squiggling away. He chuckled again once, and then more, laughter bursting out of him in jagged gasps, slicing his throat on the way up. 

Fuck. 

He couldn't crack up now. 

He couldn't go for a walk, couldn't be seen like this by any stri--strivs, blatantly emotional and horrified by them. They were aliens! They set off every single self-preservation thought he had. But he couldn't stay cooped up in here. He just couldn’t. 

The far wall had heavy fabric on it. He pulled it back and the room fell away, bright light stabbing into his eyes, highlighting every bit of the vertical drop and he -- threw up. 

It was instant, uncontrolled. He dropped to his knees and red came out. It was the tea but Evan imagined that his viscera was rebelling, making a bid to abandon him. _Did you think you could live on an alien world, Evan?_ A voice mocked. It sounds like Jos. _This is why you should have stayed behind._

Anyone would have lost it though, right? Well, not Jos. Jos probably loved looking out of a--window, his mind supplies -- and knowing that if he fell out of it he would fall and fall for a long time and then ultimately die. That window represented the reality that this world was not holding him up in a kind suspension but instead was full of cliffs and edges. 

Shit. He had to clean this up. 

But he had nothing. 

He was still kneeling next to his own sick when he heard the door open. He didn't need to look at the blow to know that it was coming -- sloppy, messy, good for nothing -- but he looked up anyway. Up at Jos, looking down at Evan, face blank. 

"What are you looking at?" Evan said, unable to fight the way his spine curled in on itself. Just cause his body had given up didn’t mean the rest of him had to. He’d go down fighting. 

"You," Jos said, and turned. 

"No," Evan said, and scrambled to his feet. Jos looking at him was bad but Jos turning away was -- it was -- no. Jos turned back. "Is this your room?" Evan blurted out. He didn't know where the thought came from, but as soon as he said it, it had a rightness to it. Jos loved to draw. That was true. A true thing about him that Evan knew. 

Jos didn't say anything but he didn't have to. 

"They put me in your room. You knew they put me in your room. What did you tell them? What do they think we're doing?" This put a whole new spin on his conversation with the Warmom. He couldn't believe. After everything. After the way Jos had flinched from him, had accused him. But then. Evan's mind spiralled. After... after Falcone, when Evan had thought Jos was gone in every way a person could be gone, he'd put his hand on Evan's. Evan had thought it meant something, too. And then he'd thought it meant that Evan was an idiot. 

Jos' eyes went icy blank, the sheer wall that he locked all his secrets behind, and Evan felt the bile rise up again. 

"No," Evan said, again "No." 

His fists clenched, like that would be any use to him in a fight with Jos. But Jos didn't -- hadn't -- hurt him. Not like that. 

"You don't get to leave." Evan was surprised by the strength of his own voice. Jos blinked at him. "You can't leave me here. You can't bring me to -- to your room -- and then leave me alone with this." 

Jos reached out a hand and Evan only just managed not to flinch. He pressed his fingers beneath Evan's eyes. "You're crying," Jos said. That couldn't be right. Evan didn't cry, unless it was on command. All of his tears had been burnt out of him, choked out by too many hands that were so much bigger than his. “Did you want to stay somewhere else?” 

Evan shook his head. 

Then Jos pushed him. Gently, none of his strength or technique behind it. Pushed Evan until he hit the bed and then a little more til he was laying on it, over the covers. 

"You're on Aian-na," Jos said, and that was the problem. "And Ash is dead." Nonsensical. "Shh." 

Evan hiccoughed. The water kept coming. 

Jos lay down in the bed too, star systems of space between them, Evan barely felt the mattress shift. But then Jos stretched out a hand, reaching until his fingers were in Evan's space. Not touching but. Evan slid his fingers out, room quiet enough without the hum of the engines that he could hear the whisper of rough skin over soft fabric. He stretched, bridging the distance until their fingers touched. 

**Author's Note:**

> If there was something you liked about this I'd love to hear what it was!
> 
> In a less angsty universe there is definitely a hilarious version of this story that is everyone massively side-eyeing the way Jos has just brought home this human boy? And moved him into his room? And people try to ask him about it and his eyes just skitter away and he goes "This is Evan." No further questions allowed.


End file.
